"President Jacob Zuma" and opposition leader "Helen Zille" put aside their differences to take part in Thursday's protest march by a coalition of producers and artists at the SABC.

"They flew up from Cape town last night, they held hands and had a nice chat," said Z News puppet manipulator Nkosinathi Gaar as he held a large puppet of Zuma, created for the as yet unaired satire show.

Zuma's puppet, manipulated by Jason Potgieter, drew a lot of attention from the colourful group of protesters assembling at the Atlas Studios, nearby SABC's headquarters in Auckland Park, Johannesburg.

A coalition known as the TV Industry Emergency Coalition wants to use the march to highlight their struggle to get payment out of the SABC for work produced.

They were also concerned about what they felt was the SABC's policy of choosing international content over local content, which threatened the local product industry.

Added to this was a call by the Young Communist League that the SABC board resign and that Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda order Parliament to start work on appointing a new board.

As Johannesburg's creative workers bobbed to reggae music, volunteers sold T-shirts with slogans like, "The SABC is killing the nation".

The SABC said it needed a bail-out of at least R2-billion.

Waving "Zuma's" hand in the air, Potgieter said it was frustrating that after commissioning the Z News show, the SABC had now placed it in an archive saying the nation was "not ready for it".

Posters read: "Freelancers are not for free", "SABC, stop feeding ama repeats".

Sapa

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